Perucki sacrifice fly gives UTSA season-opening 1-0 victory

SAN ANTONIO — Brock Hartson and Logan Onda each threw five scoreless innings and RJ Perucki delivered a walk-off sacrifice fly in the 10th inning to send UTSA to a season-opening 1-0 victory against Saint Peter’s on Friday night at Roadrunner Field.

A Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American a season ago for UTSA (1-0), Hartson was impressive in the early going striking out four of the 16 batters he faced before turning the ball over to Onda, a junior from Houston. Onda continued the Roadrunners dominance on the hill striking out three over the final five innings.

Matching Hartson and Onda on the mound for the Peacocks (0-1) was Zach Hopf. The junior right-hander was equally impressive going seven shutout innings allowing three hits and striking out three Roadrunners.

St. Peter’s had its best opportunity to score in the third inning undone on the basepaths by Roadrunners catcher John Bormann. Bormann picked off DJ Nozza at second base with no outs and cut down Ariel Ramirez attempting to steal second for the final out of the frame.

UTSA seemed poised to end the game in the ninth inning with one out and the bases loaded but Eric Mozeika entered from the bullpen and induced an infield popup and a lineout to right field to send the game to extra innings.

After Onda shut down the Peackocks in the top half of the tenth, Andres Vieyra got plunked to lead off the home half of the frame. Back-to-back walks to John Welborn and Jesse Baker loaded the bases with no outs. Two batters later Perucki drove a fly ball into center allowing pinch-runner Logan Kinder to tag a score the game-winning run.